Share and Remember: June 2011

Thursday, June 30

Puppet & Stuffed Animal Storage

While at Target searching for storage solutions, I spotted this shoe spinner. Who buys things like this? I guess I do but not for shoes! Immediately I thought it would be great for storing those little stuffed animals and displaying our puppets! I have a lot of them and they’re just not getting used being stuffed in a basket. Maybe this will encourage puppet play. The base is heavy so it shouldn't be able to be tipped by little ones on the floor and it's a nice size, 38 in high, 11 3/4 dia. It's a white coated metal and easy to put together. The baskets spin.
RE organize Shoe Spinner, $19.99 at Target

I am ABSOLUTELY thrilled this worked as well as I thought it might! It’s cute, organized & fun. No, I really don’t have any extra space for this but I’m MAKING space because I love it.

From Door to Curtain {Tablecloth Remake}

This is making me sooo happy. It’s just little things… I took a big step {for me} and removed the closet door. I’ve thought of doing it several times but it’s *my house*, you know, and I don’t want to do everything in the name of day care. Reality is it consumes my time, my energy and even our home. But we are happy.

This is the problem we’ve been having…for 7+ years now. Parents come in the screen door, then the front door. Then the front door needs to be closed or partially closed to open the closet door. How many times a day? Too many to count. Not only that, kids are always playing in the doors. They get banged together and my biggest fear is someone is going to get hurt.
My insurance company has an article on their loss prevention section for child care about door injuries. Door related finger injuries are one of the most common injuries at child care and are preventable with hinge guards.

Automatic door closers that slow down or prevent slammed doors can help
prevent injuries around the doorknob side of the door, but most serious
finger injuries take place at the hinge side of the door. As the door closes, the pressure exerted at the hinge area of a door can reach as much as 40 tons per square inch!

I do think this is referring to those heavy commercial doors but still, I want to prevent that at my house too. I will be getting hinge guards for the front and bathroom doors.

Things came together when I was at Goodwill on Saturday. I found this tablecloth – Fieldcrest, like new if not brand new, for $3.99. There were 8 matching napkins {another $3.99 x 2. Goodwill always splits up sets and prices them separately but $12 for a curtain and cloth napkins, I can handle that}.

I’ve been needing new cloth napkins so this worked out perfectly. It’s a very big tablecloth that wouldn’t fit any table I’ll ever own, so I cut about 2” off and flipped it over, made a rod pocket {about 1.5" header} and hung it on the inside of the closet with a tension rod. This tension rod isn’t coming down even with kids pulling on it. It has a screw that tightens down so the rod doesn't move. Brett gave it a test yank!

I love that I didn’t have to hem 3 sides of it and it has nice detailing although most if it isn’t seen except for the bottom hem. It’s the perfect color too!

With the door off, I realized the top shelf needed some work so I replaced the plastic bins with fabric lined baskets. So much better.

I planned on tying it back or putting the curtain up on the shelf during day care hours so it wouldn’t be messed with but the kids love to play in there and I like to make the most of the space I have so I’ll let them play behind the curtain. They can still play in “the elevator” without a door. Smile

I rarely look at textiles at Goodwill because it makes me start to itch & scratch but {more internally than anything} but I’ve been looking for a few things and I like a DEAL and a good repurposing!

Wednesday, June 29

Hoping for more days like this

This was last Sunday evening. Seriously, that was the sky when I was lying in the grass.

Wordless Wednesday

International Mud Day {Mud Kitchen}

I had no idea there was such a thing, but how fun, International Mud Day! Lots of parents & teachers out there are making little mud pie kitchen type play areas so I was inspired to as well.

We have this space between our sandbox / under our “mountain” climber so it was time to take advantage of it. It’s now our little sand/water area. I really don’t want water in the actual sandbox. Adding water to sand is something I want my group to be able to do, but I do have to keep kids fairly clean and decent throughout the day and I can’t have the whole thing muddy. I hope by creating this new area, they will keep the water here – we’ll see. I just put down the three blocks & the boards against the back- nothing fancy.

I think this will work! The only things I bought were the white colander, wood utensils {they ♥ the meat tenderizer!} and aluminum pans. We had all these other toys in the sandbox already. The last time we replaced the sand we got this dirtier type of sand & I DO NOT like it but it works out well for this activity! Hopefully the kids will “use it up” so we can get some new, nicer sand.

My group is mostly boys right now. I had to drag them away from the slip-n-slide to come play in the dirt with me, but once they got into it, they were really enjoying it! Some girls will be here tomorrow and I can’t wait to see what they think.

Monday, June 27

Clean & Sanitize {Spray Bottles}

I use two spray bottles everyday: one for soapy solution and one for a bleach solution which is required by licensing for my day care.

This is an inexpensive way to clean. Fill a bottle with water and a few squirts of dish soap. Use this solution for cleaning counters, floors, tables, stools, the sink, etc. Then follow up with the bleach solution and allow it to air dry.

The bleach solution is 1 T bleach to one quart of water. Because it must be mixed daily, or it loses it’s effectiveness, I choose to use Clorox wipes on the changing table but I use the bleach solution around the kitchen and on toys. I’m thinking I’ll save another set of these bottles to keep at the changing table and go back to that method to save a little $$ on the wipes…

The bottles I used before were ugly and the labels kept getting wet & smearing and Sharpie marker wears off too, looking terrible.

I use Method spray cleaners {sometimes} in the bathrooms and around the house. Because I now save most of my recycles for crafts and other projects {not kidding!} I also saved these bottles. Then I had the idea to use them for my solutions and label them with Silhouette vinyl. Yay, I love them!

In case you’re wondering about my 21 days of organization project, I haven’t given up. I’ve been taking longer on the kitchen area and have accomplished ~~lots~~ less than I wanted but I’m getting there.

Ice Cube Painting {Featured Reader Project!}

My recent ice cube painting post quickly became the most popular post on my blog, by a long shot, thanks to it being shared by Teach Preschool, on It’s Playtime, and being added to Playopedia.
A reader of my blog, Dawn A, sent me an email saying she tried ice cube painting with her two little ones. She had a great idea – for her kids to make a T-shirt for Father’s Day! Dad donated a shirt and and he was there to watch his two kids make his gift.

For their project, they used food coloring {see below} to make the ice cube paints. They put a piece of cardboard in the sort so the colors would not leak to the other side. They actually didn’t get a picture of the finished shirt.

Dawn said:

We used food coloring for the paint. We were uncertain how to set the colors so they wouldn't wash out. My husband sprayed the shirt with a mixture of salt and vinegar, and then set it outside to dry. Unfortunately it rained. The colors ran and our patterned shirt became something closer to a tie-dye look. Fortunately the children really liked it and were not disappointed. ( :

He said that he considered his present watching and enjoying his children, as well as getting the colorful shirt in the end. It was fun watching our two children (the 3rd is an infant) choose different ways to use the ice cubes, and even using the container with melted colored water, to paint. Thank you for this great idea! I passed it on to several friends.

I think it looks great! It looks & sounds like everyone had a great time in the process too which is most important.

After doing a little Google search, I found this information about dying cotton with food coloring: Can you dye cotton with food coloring?

Dawn, we hope you’ll let us know how the t-shirt holds up. From the article above, it sounds like food coloring will run if it gets wet, {which you’ve already learned} and “…it also will deposit color on skin, other clothes, or anything else touching it. That will ruin the garment in question and possibly other clothing or fabric it touches (such as cloth-covered seats).”

I wish that wasn’t the case because it sure looks cool! Thanks for following & sharing Dawn!

Did anyone else try painting something? Send me an email & I’d love to share it.

***It was suggested to do this to set the paint: 1 part vinegar to 3 parts water. Soak a thin dish towel in it & then use damp towel and iron with it over project it will set the paint.

Sunday, June 26

Our Weekend

It wasn’t so eventful but I took a few pictures…. Friday night: dinner at Olive Garden, a little shopping with Brett, Damon mowed.
Saturday: Errands & jobs around the house. I scrubbed on the deck some more – we hope to stain the fence next weekend and we might get to the deck. Damon got the Z28 out to give it a wash and start working on it. It’s been sitting in the garage for a year now.

Not burning rubber…burning coolant. Not quite as fun.

Fireworks Saturday night that we could see from our driveway. Our neighborhood was very busy with early 4th of July celebrations since a festival was going on just a few blocks from here. Our neighbors had 18 kids in their yard! The other neighbors invited Brett over to play for a while. He got to do giant sparklers and watch some of their fireworks. It was so nice they included him – he was feeling bad to be alone.

He came home to watch the fireworks with us & do a few more sparklers.

Sunday: rich & filling day. Glad to hear again the message of salvation. For lunch we had a simple yummy meal: baked chicken, rosemary potato wedges, corn and cucumber salad. Sunday evening I went out to enjoy the beautiful weather. I laid in the grass with Stormy. He basked in the sun and watched birds & bugs while I read my Kindle for a while. Monday already? That went fast!

Saturday, June 25

Play Kitchen {Sink & Stovetop}

Slow but sure progress! I would love to finish this next weekend but we have other projects going as well.

Play Kitchen Progress
Play Kitchen {Inspiration}

Thursday, June 23

Tempera–it’s not for kitties

Stormy got into a cup of red tempera paint tonight when Brett was playing with him and chased him into the laundry room. Stormy jumped up on the dryer where a tray of paint was waiting to be put away. Stormy shook his paw and flung paint on the wall, on the laundry that was hanging to dry, and several other spots but it wasn’t too bad.

Poor Stormy. He does pretty good with baths if I hold him close so basically I got a bath too. Good thing I love this cat!

Rainbow Sprinkles

This afternoon the three schoolagers mixed up some sugar cookies during naptime and decorated them with rainbow sprinkles. These three were so busy and fun today!